


If For a Day

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: One Shot, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-05
Updated: 2008-01-05
Packaged: 2019-01-19 21:32:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12418584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Peace on earth.  It is a simple promise, and for Remus and Tonks it means a moment, however brief, without the ghosts that haunt them.





	If For a Day

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

If For A Day

 

            He had done up the house just as she would have.  He could almost feel them glancing at each other – not in the suspicious way that they had no so very long ago – but the concerned way that they had once, far longer ago…the “do you think we should say something?” looks of concern.  “Remus, are you sure that you want to – “ Lily’s voice found his ear through all the barriers in between: time, loyalty, reality…

            “Yes,” he answered them.  “And I want it to be nice for your visit.”

            Again they exchanged glances, leaving Remus to wonder, as always, if they thought they were being subtle or just didn’t care how obvious the looks they were exchanging were to him.  “Look, Moony, I know we’ve made a lot of jokes about you going crazy, but you’ve always known we were just –“

            “I know what you are, James,” Remus told him.  He settled back in his chair and poured himself a glass.  “Lily’s standing under the mistletoe.”  Remus could see that with his back turned.  He stared into the fire but did not miss James’s shrug and smirk as he headed obligingly over.  He heard the crash as Sirius tried to beat him to her and was shoved roughly aside, overturning the coffee table as he fell, complaining loudly.

            Remus waited for his approach, following his progress from the mumbled curses as Sirius brushed himself off and muttered about James.  When he was behind his chair, he spoke to Remus, “So, Peter not invited?”

            “Of course he’s invited.  You know he’s always late.”

            “So was she, but you don’t really think she’ll – “

            “It’s almost midnight,” Remus spoke over him.  “Midnight, and the clock strikes. It is Christmas Day, the werewolves' birthday, the door of the solstice still wide enough open to let them all slink through.”

            “Remus, she was drunk when she said that.  It wasn’t a promise,” Sirius says quietly.

            “Your doorway is closing,” Remus told him.  “When the clock strikes you’ll all have to go.  Or you’ll be stuck here another year.”

            “She’s not coming, Remus.”

            “I don’t need to hear you to know what you say, I don’t need to see you to know what you do, what makes you think that I would know any less of her?”

            And because James Potter always had the gift of timing, Remus was not surprised by the gentle thump as he and Lily toppled over – having become too enthusiastic in their adherence to yuletide lore.  “Sorry Remus,” Lily but not James said as she sought to untangle herself from her husband, who was making her fight to do so.  She, but not he, had quite forgotten their audience.

            “Just as I left you,” Peter said, sidestepping the enmeshed couple with a roll of his eyes as he made his way over to where Sirius stood behind Remus’s chair.  “So why am I here again?”

            “You know we all decided you were killed and being controlled as an Inferi,” Sirius told him cheerfully.  “So your soul has the same privileges as ours.”

            “What’s Remus waiting for then?”

            “He still thinks she’s coming.”

            “She is coming,” Remus said calmly, with finality.

            “Remus…” Lily began from the floor, stopping her giggling fight with James long enough to shoot a concerned look at the back of his head.  “We’re one thing but surely you know that – “

            “Since when are you all of such little faith?” Remus asked them, nearly turning to better take in their reactions before he caught himself.

            “It’s being dead, mate,” Sirius told him, as Remus felt a warm, strong hand clasping his shoulder briefly.  “Once you’ve seen, it’s not a matter of faith anymore.”

            “Do you miss it?” Remus asked, staring, bemused, into the fire as he considered this new perspective.  “Believing?”

            “All the time,” James said, his voice serious again.  Remus heard the shuffling as he stood then put his hand down to help Lily to her feet.  Unlike the other two, they did not approach his chair but rather waited between him and the Charlie Brown Christmas tree he had festooned with colour and light almost – but not quite – haphazardly.

            “No,” Peter whispered, looking down.

            “You have to go,” Remus told them, pricking his ears for the faint ticking from across the full room.

            “We do wish she would come, Remus,” he heard Lily offer, saw her glance up at James helplessly.

            “Since when are you so sure?” Sirius asked him, the pressure of his hand on Remus’s shoulder vanishing.

            “I’ve had to be.  Since you.”

            “Ah.  Not forgiven yourself for wavering over my guilt and doing nothing, eh?  Well, no harm done now.”

            “How can you possibly say that?” it was Peter who would demand it, then look awkward that it was not his place to disagree with Sirius’s reconciliation with Remus.

            “Werewolves don’t change their fangs, you told me once,” James said.  Remus laughed at the look Lily shot him.  “You were always uncertain, always oscillating with the slightest breeze.  How are you so sure now?”

            “Christmas day, the werewolves’ birthday,” Remus mumbled.  “The door of the solstice still wide enough open.”

            “She did a number on you,” Remus heard Peter’s whisper.

            “And just for tonight, you are the brave one,” James nodded.  Remus smiled, hiding it in the rim of his glass as he took another sip.  Of course James would be the first to understand.

            “Well,” Remus could hear James continue, slapping his hands together loudly, “if she’s going to show up soon, we’d better get packing.  We’d quite frighten her off, I’d imagine.”

            “Not her,” Sirius’s contradiction came instantly.

            There was a hollow mechanical gulp just before the minute hand gave it’s little jerk to reach the proper alignment to join its shorter partner, which had been waiting patiently for the past few moments.

            Remus refused to sit up for a long moment, refused to take another sip from his glass, refused to turn or stare into the fireplace.  He could not look around the room.  He could not do anything that would pull him out of this in-between world he occupied, the world that only looked identical to his once shabby and now beglittered living room.  Not until she came.

            The sweet eternity of that midnight instant lasted until the pounding on the door allowed him to rise to his feet, walk through the empty room, and exit the small, tacky Christmas wonderland he had fashioned for her.

            She stood beyond the reach by the thickness of the door, quiet now, growing cold and probably angry in the lightly falling snow.  The click of the doorknob coincided with the preparatory click of the clock’s second hand, ready to break its unity with its fellows in the face of the force all must eventually obey, the insistent press of time.  As it shifted into place, she came into view.

            She put out her foot, as if to prevent him from slamming the door in her face again.  As he might have on another night, or even a different time on this night.  Her eyes widened slightly when he opened the door wide and caught her arm as she moved uncertainly inside.

            He could see the look of shock on her face upon beholding the room as he regarded the back of her head.  “Know I was coming?” she asked, looking at the troll’s foot umbrella stand that held a plethora of candy canes the size of walking sticks in particular.

            “Of course,” he told her.  “You’re the one who told me.”

            And because the minute hand has still not quite broken its unity, he grabs her waist and turns her to face him.  Then he captures her mouth with his.  And despite the face that by the time he does this, the minute hand has settled into its new temporary lodging, she does not pull away.  Because she believes the myth she told him once, while drunk with Sirius last Christmas, she does not ask why he has suddenly relented, only for this moment.  She does not wonder that his ghosts are not about him.

            She is the one who told him.  And she knows that this is only for the magical moment she described.  She knows that this is not the end of his issues and his ghosts.  But it is the beginning of the end.  This is what he can feel her whisper into his mouth with her kiss.  This is what she knows when he lifts her into his arms and carries her to the couch.

            _This is how you look in the flickering light of the fire, and the twinkle of fairy lights.  These lights are easy on the eyes of one who has not seen, two who have shuffled in darkness, for so long.  More forgiving than the sight that awaits us in the garish light of day._

            The dark was haunted and the daylight revealed the monster, but she was right.  In the power of this one moment, as the clock struck by the dying embers of a fire, all those things could slink through the crack in the door and leave them – for a night – in peace.

            By the light of a Christmas tree, beside the overturned coffee table.


End file.
